In today's age of increased awareness of health monitoring and the importance of early detection and prevention of various medical conditions, disorders and diseases, individuals are often required to make visits to medical practitioners for a range of tests and check-ups. For example, it is generally recommended that individuals make regular visits (e.g., once every year, two years, etc.) to practitioners in connection with the monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment of medical conditions in number of areas, such as checking heart-health, detecting various cancers, and monitoring for certain genetically predisposed disorders.
One area in which there is a particular need for regular visits to a medical professional is in connection with the examination of an individual's eyes. Typically, the examination of a person's eyes involves the performance of one or more tests for monitoring and diagnosing eye health, such as detecting glaucoma and retinal disorders, inspecting the pupil, and measuring corneal sensitivity, and/or tests for evaluating visual ability and acuity, such as determining refractive error and detecting color blindness.
There are a number of important benefits to obtaining eye health examinations and/or vision examinations on a regular and continual basis. For example, as with many other types of medical examinations, regular visits and checkups by an individual enable practitioners to monitor and track the health of the individual's eyes and to detect and diagnose certain disorders, diseases and other changes in the patient's eyes and/or vision. Significantly, this allows for early detection, diagnosis and treatment of many conditions, which, in turn, frequently increases the likelihood that the treatment will be successful. In fact, many disorders and diseases are generally treatable or even preventable when detected and diagnosed in the early stages. Also, it is well known that changes in vision can often occur somewhat suddenly, such as at certain periods in a person's life, and eyesight can deteriorate continually over time. Accordingly, another important benefit to regular eye examinations is that they help to ensure that optical prescriptions for individuals are up to date and as accurate as possible.
Given these and numerous other benefits associated with regular eye examinations, it is not surprising that many well-known optometric and ophthalmologic associations and organizations typically recommend that individuals visit eye care professionals once every one or two years Moreover, the need to receive regular eye examinations is particularly important for certain individuals, including those who have a higher likelihood of suffering from various disorders and diseases based on their demographics or other characteristics, such as age, race, profession, individual and/or family history of diseases or disorders, etc. As a result, it is often recommended that many such individuals receive eye exams at least once a year or on an even more frequent basis.
Additionally, it is well known and widely accepted in the eye care and vision field that, in order to maximize these benefits, the regular examinations received by individuals may be in the form of comprehensive eye examinations. Typically, to be considered comprehensive, such examinations may include certain approved tests and procedures and/or meet certain minimum standards and requirements for testing and diagnosis. In particular, comprehensive eye examinations may include some or all of the following tests and procedures (or tests and procedures of an equivalent nature): (i) objective and subjective refraction and/or other tests to check visual acuity; (ii) examination of the extraocular muscles; (iii) peripheral vision test (e.g., by checking the visual field by confrontation); (iv) examination of the external eye; (v) examination of the pupils; (vi) color vision test; (vii) test for stereopsis for depth perception; (viii) evaluation of central vision field (e.g., using the Amsler grid); (ix) cover test for strabismus; (x) an optical coherency tomography (OCT) scan and/or slit lamp examination using biomicroscopy; (xi) examination of eyelids, conjunctiva, cornea, anterior chamber, iris and lens; (xii) measure eye pressure and/or intraocular pressure; (xiii) imaging of fundus using a retinal camera and examination of macula, vessels, optic nerve, peripheral retina, and vitreous humour. In certain cases, it may also be useful to administer particular types of screenings to individuals for certain diseases or disorders (e.g., glaucoma, macular degeneration or hypertensive retina), such as where there is individual and/or family history of diseases or disorders.
Despite the known importance of regular eye health checkups and vision examinations, many individuals only visit eye care professionals and receive eye examinations on a highly sporadic basis. Other individuals fail to visit an eye care professional at all, or only do so in response to suffering from a medical condition or recognizing a potential problem with their vision. In fact, it is estimated that the average American adult receives an eye examination once every five years or more. Likewise, it is estimated that a large percentage of the individuals in America who require some form of vision correction have the wrong correction or no correction. Moreover, even among the individuals that undergo eye exams on a more frequent basis, the examinations received by these individuals often fail to rise to the level of a comprehensive eye examination. For example, when visiting an eye care professional many individuals may simply receive a vision screening and/or a minimal set of visual acuity tests.
While there are various contributing factors, primary reasons why many individuals fail to regularly undergo eye examinations are based on time, cost, and convenience. Typically, in order to obtain an eye examination, an individual required to expend time and effort to seek out, select and make an appointment with an appropriate eye care professional. In turn, time is spent traveling to and from the practitioner's office, waiting for the practitioner, partaking in discussions with the practitioner and/or nurse or assistant and undergoing the examination. Similarly, from the practitioner's perspective, the number of patients that can be seen and examined are limited by a number of factors, such as the time required to examine each patient, update the patient's records, and prepare equipment. As a result, individuals are frequently forced to visit eye care professionals at inconvenient times and/or travel to other, less conveniently located professionals. Also, in order to maximize the number of patients that can be seen, practitioners may limit the number of tests and procedures and/or the time spent on such tests, thereby reducing the time needed for each patient.
Additionally, the costs associated with visiting a practitioner can dissuade, and even prohibit, many individuals from receiving eye examinations on a regular basis. This can be further compounded by the fact that many individuals lack insurance coverage for such examinations and are required to pay some or all of the costs out of pocket. Thus, making regular visits to an eye care professional can often be a time-consuming, inconvenient and expensive commitment. Accordingly, there is a need for novel approaches to providing eye health examinations and vision examinations that minimize the time and cost required by individuals, and thereby encourage individuals to obtain regular examinations.
There have been some attempts in the past to provide systems that simplify and automate the vision testing and examination process. These prior art systems, however, have exhibited a number of drawbacks and limitations, which have resulted in their failure to be adopted by consumers in any meaningful way. One such drawback is that many of these systems only provide vision screening or visual acuity testing. Similarly, many of these systems are limited to a restricted or incomplete set of procedures and tests and do not allow individuals to obtain a comprehensive eye examination. Another drawback is that many of these systems require an on-site eye care practitioner and/or operator to provide some or all of the examination. Other such systems do not allow for any input or feedback from an eye care practitioner. Yet another drawback is that none of these systems provide a real-time interface between the examinee and a remote practitioner. Still yet another drawback is that many of these systems do not include any functionality for automatically detecting or diagnosing potential disorders, defects or risk factors based on an individual's examination data and/or for automatically generating recommendations and/or referrals.
There is, therefore, a need for an eye testing and evaluation system for providing eye health examinations and vision examinations to individuals. There is also a need for a system that allows individuals to obtain eye health examinations and vision examinations through a user-friendly customer diagnostic center that includes a wide range of ophthalmologic and vision testing equipment. There is further a need for a system which enables individuals to receive a comprehensive eye examination. There is further a need for a system having an automated or semi-automated customer diagnostic center that allows individuals to obtain eye health examinations and vision examinations with little or no on-site assistance.
There is also a need for a system that provides an interface between the customer diagnostic center and a remote eye care practitioner over a network to enable the practitioner to evaluate an individuals eye health and vision. There is further a need for a system that enables the remote practitioner to evaluate an individuals eye health and vision and provides the individual with eye health reports, prescriptions, diagnoses, and/or recommendations from the remote practitioner. There is still further a need for a system that allows a remote practitioner or offsite technician to control or monitor the ophthalmologic and vision testing equipment and/or the administration of various eye health and vision tests to individuals. There is still further a need for a system that can be accessed by individuals at a wide range of convenient locations. There is still further a need for a system that encourages individuals to obtain eye health examinations and vision examinations on a regular basis by reducing the time and cost required.